PHNX Arizona Diamondbacks Podcast - Will the Arizona Diamondbacks make the playoffs in 2023? Of course we say yes

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

The Arizona Diamondbacks are playing solid baseball and have moved up in the Power Rankings across MLB. We take an entirely too early look at the D-backs playoff chances and their numbers from this fast start. We also discuss MLB expansion and teams changing their beer selling policy due to the pitch clock.WATCH YOUR FAVORITE TEAMS HERE: www.fubotv.com/phnxSUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtubeALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase.BetMGM: Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code PHNX (https://mediaserver.betmgmpartners.com/renderBanner.do?zoneId=1693757). Place a pre-game, moneyline wager in the amount of at least $10 on any market at standard odds price. You will receive $200 in Bonus Bets instantly regardless of the outcome of your wager! Just make sure you use bonus code PHNX when you sign up!Plus join us at the BetMGM Sportsbook at State Farm Stadium for all Suns’ away playoff games. Our PHNX Suns watch parties, presented by NUTRL, will feature food and drink specials, PHNX giveaways, and BetMGM deposit matches. Join us by grabbing your free ticket: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/616706063437Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (CO, DC, IL, IN, LA, MD, MS, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-327-5050 (MA)21+ to wager. Please Gamble Responsibly. Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (KS, NV), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-270-7117 for confidential help (MI). Visit BetMGM.com for Terms & Conditions. US promotional offers not available in DC, Nevada, New York or Ontario.PHNX: Become a Diehard today! Check out https://phnxlocker.com/ to grab your membership to receive exclusive content, discounts on all events and merch, and access to our Discord chats. Circle K: Make sure you’re not missing out on all this great stuff, and be stocked all March Madness long! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you!OGeez!: Learn more about OGeez! at https://ogeezbrands.com//. Must be 21 years or older to purchase.Rotowire: Get your free trial and unlock all the best fantasy sports news and analysis at https://rotowire.com/phnxFour Peaks: Join us for our NFL Draft Day Live Party at Four Peaks’ 8th St. Pub. Register for free to receive drink specials: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/phnx-cardinals-nfl-draft-party-tickets-610031329127Must be 21+. Enjoy responsibly. Roman: Go to https://ro.co/PHNX today to get 20% off your entire first order. When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome in to another edition of the PHNX D-Backs podcast right here on PHNX. My name is Derek Montia. Of course, I am your mayor of PHNX. This is my vice mayor of PHNX. He's your Thunderstitch. It's Jesse Friedman. No, Ryan. I have not gotten my couch from not yet. Not yet. Not yet. He hasn't even picked out a shirt from one of our other partners. You think He can make a decision on a couch? Oh my God, this is just too much for him. We have so many amazing sponsors that we were just getting stuff from all the time. It's so hard to buy stuff from these people.

It's hard to keep them straight. Yeah, for real. One day I have to buy sunglasses. Another day I have to pick out which free polo I want. The sunglasses thing. That was a whole other decision for him. I didn't think that was ever going to happen. That's fair.

It took me convincing him. Max is not very happy about how long it took for me to pick out my sunglasses from Shady Rays. But I'm happy with the choice of there. Shady Ray. We don't have an ad read for you today, but you guys are top notch. Of course, we do have plenty of other things to talk about, including plenty of our other partners today. But the one thing we were talking about first is the Arizona Diamondbacks moving up in power rankings across baseball. And of course, when we talk about the Diamondbacks moving up in rankings, that shit puts fire in my blood.

Damon, are we ready for fire in the blood? Let's go. That puts fire in my blood. Yeah. Oh, we're playing that 20 times today. But yes, the Diamondbacks have moved up some spots in the power rankings across baseball. Some more than others, Jesse. Some people have absolutely lost their goddamn minds.

We're talking about you, Bleacher Report. CBS Sports has the debacks up four spots to 15th. What are your initial reactions to the Diamondbacks being ranked 15th in baseball? I think that's pretty reasonable. I mean, the debacks on most lists were around 20th coming. into the season. I think if you had them, you know, like in the like 23, 24, that would have been pretty low, honestly. I think this team is, is better than it was last year. And last year's team won 74 games. I think a lot of people kind of view this team as being around 500 with potential

to do more. So yeah, given how fast they've started, I think they've done enough to probably move up a few spots. I personally wouldn't put them top five or top 10 at this point. I think we need to tap the breaks a little bit, see, see what happens over the next few weeks. But, People say we react crazy. Some of these reactions are a bit crazy early on. I think that what we've seen across as far as the criticisms of this Diamondbacks team are absolutely fair. It doesn't even make sense, honestly, that they've won this many games with some of their numbers, some of like their OPS as a team and things like that are very low.

They just find a way to win. As a matter of fact, Jesse and I were looking at another team, the St. Louis Cardinals that have dropped like a rock in the power ranking. They've kind of gone in the opposite direction. The Diamondbacks have gone. But the run differential between the D-Backs and the Cardinals, not that much different. The amount of runs scored by both teams, not that much different. It's just baseball, right?

Like in baseball, you can kind of spread it around a little bit more. I mean, the Diamondbacks did get thumped by the Dodgers in one of those games 10 to 1. A couple of other games like the game against the Brewers and the second game of the series. They lost 7 to 1. So they've had some pretty one-sided losses. But for the most part, their wins were pretty close. and that leads to a minus two run differential right now this early in the season for the diamondbacks, even with an eight and five record.

Yeah, who cares about run differential? Nobody cares about that. Or the Cardinals. Go away, go away to St. Louis Cardinals. What we care about is where the Diamondbacks are. ESPN has them up to 14th up from 20th, so they've moved up six spots in ESPN's power rankings. And Bleacher Report, I don't know if to love you or to hate you, but Leisure Report have moved the Diamondbacks up to fifth best team in Major League Baseball,

up 14 spots from 19th. Yeah, I don't know about that one, Derek. No, no. I mean, it does, I think different outlets have a different way of thinking about power rankings. Yeah, like, like as far as how caught in the moment they're going to get. I mean, you could make a case that, like, if you're picking which team you want to face right now, you know, in a three-game series, The debacks are probably at the bottom of that list or near the bottom of that list, right? If you're just thinking about which teams are hot right now versus which teams aren't,

then yeah, the debacks are hot right now. I mean, I think we can all agree on that. But if you're viewing power rankings as like this is the pecking order of teams around the league, like as a whole as we continue to move through the season as far as who we think is going to be the best teams at the end of the season, fifth is a little high for right now. right uh the debacks are eight and five they're on they're on pace to win a hundred games as he talked about yesterday but they also are they also are minus two they've allowed more runs than they've scored and i don't think that means that that that doesn't invalidate what they've done so far they've

had a tremendously difficult schedule um but we need to see more right we need to see more before we can say that they're the fifth best team in baseball despite what what bleacher report might think Some of these responses are incredible. Mastasio Mike says the Diamondback Yankees and Rays are the only teams that haven't lost the series. We are supposed to tell you that, Mike. We had that in our notes because, yes, the Diamondbacks are one of only those three teams that have not lost the series. Obviously, we know what the Rays are doing, and that's pretty damn good company, considering that they are off to one of baseball's best starts in decades.

But the Diamondbacks being up there with those two teams, that's pretty, expected as far as as far as what we thought this team was going to do at least early on you can have all of your expectations about this team and and what the season how the season was going to go I don't think many people had this had the early season in the month of April going this well yeah for Arizona yeah I mean I think we talked about this a little bit the other day but baseball reference has a strength of schedule metric which they define as being the number of runs per game their opponents are better or worse than the average team For the debacks, that number is 2.9.

The next highest is 1.7. They have the hardest schedule in all the baseball. By a wide margin. By that metric, it is almost twice as difficult as the next highest team, which is actually the Los Angeles Dodgers. And then after that, it's the Milwaukee Brewer. So I guess there's certainly some interconnectivity there. I guess the Dodgers is only high because they've played the Diamond Vax and played

some other good teams. Padres too? Yeah. Have they played Padre Jett? I don't know. I don't know off the top of my head. But yeah, all that to say, the debacks, the opponents that they've played, as we've talked about, have been very, very good.

And so. And this isn't, this isn't projected strength of schedule. This is strength of schedule based on the teams they've played up to this point. Yeah, this is who they've already played. Okay. Yeah. And I mean, again, that just goes to show that this team has not been getting easy opponents, but they've been doing the work.

And again, the OPS, not great. Some of the numbers statistically for this team, not great. we're going to dive into their fast start and what they were good at here in a little bit. But they are finding a way to win. And I think that's the thing that's impressive. If starting pitching can continue the role that we kind of saw here in this Brewer series, I mean, the sky seems to be the limit for this team, at least for right now. I don't really know what to think of this team.

You don't know what to do with your hands. I don't know what to do with my hands. I don't know what to do with myself. No, I don't know what to think of this team because as much as we want to, once again, like what we do with the bullpen, where we throw last year's bullpen onto this year's team, even though it's relatively a completely different bullpen. There is a lot to be said about the fact that this is a completely different team. I know there's a lot of the same components, but this is just a different team.

There's a different feel to it. I feel like Tori has different strengths now on how he can manage this team. And I feel like it's kind of like my new car. I still don't know all the things that my car can do. I'm still figuring out with these buttons and stuff. stuff me the other day I figured out it could drive itself that shit is wild to me wait your car can drive itself it can just drive itself it has to remind me to put my hands back on the steering wheel because the car just drives itself I didn't even how did you buy a car that drove itself without without knowing that

because they just throw it in as a feature now it's just a thing it does it's not even like something they sell you the car on they're just like oh yeah that bunch of radio that one's how you connect to the apple car play that one's gonna the car's gonna drive itself no big deal you know I drive it's 2008 rap four. It's a sick rap four. They didn't, it is a sick rap four. They didn't have that feature 15 years ago. But yeah, my metaphor is, Tori doesn't know what this team can do.

He doesn't know what all these buttons sometimes are with these guys, but he's figuring it out quickly. Yesterday, he definitely found the right one to push when he got himself ejected for sure. That was like the like all go button, you know, but we're not the only people around here. Bleacher report, us, we're not the only ones thinking crazy because our friends over at talking baseball put out a poll about if the diamondbacks will make the playoffs. And this is pretty even.

Let's be honest. Let's be honest. Preseason did we really expect it to nearly be a 50-50 split for a poll like this, which is a national outlet? Yeah. Not us. We would understand this for us if we put this out. Yeah.

If we put this out, it would probably be like 70.30 or something. Yeah. 70.30 for sure in favor of yes. Yeah. But talking baseball, I mean, we've seen them tweet about the diamond backs or tweet highlights from the diamond back. and whatnot in the past. And those tweets don't necessarily get nearly as much interaction as some of the other stuff

because I don't think talking baseball's audience has a whole lot of Diamondbacks fans in there. But yeah, clearly there are some people who are kind of buying in to what the Diamondbacks have done through 13 games. And I will, you know, I will try to make it as clear as I possibly can that 13 games is a tiny sample size. We have still played less than 10% of the full season, right? And, you know, even teams that don't finish super well. Like, we could probably go back to last season and find several 13 game stretches where

the debacks went eight and five. Oh, yeah. I'm sure that's something that they did last year. But it is still about the strength of schedule. It's about the teams that they've done it against, the way that they've done it, the fact that they're getting in teams heads with their run game more than anything else, right? Shout out William Contreras and that whole incident yesterday where he threw to second when Geraldo Perdomo wasn't even stealing and an airmailed the throw.

So there's a lot of things here that do have promise, even if maybe talking about whether the devacts are going to make the playoffs. It might be a little early for that. Playoffs. We're playoff bound, maybe. One thing you said earlier was about teams wanting to play, the Diamondbacks, the Diamondbacks probably being very low on teams' list of who they want to play right now

with how hot they've been. I feel like another aspect of that that we've been talking about quite a bit has been the pressure that this team is able to apply on a defense. and make them make mistakes. Yeah. As you move along further in the season, those mistakes become fewer and fewer, right? Teams tighten it up.

They get better. They just get locked in more as the baseball season. We're still very early into the season. And players, playing sloppy is part of early on in the season. It's part of spring training. It's part of getting back in that groove of being a baseball player. But that's very much a reason why I would see teams not wanting to play this team right now because you do have to be, you have to be on point when you play the Diamondbacks.

You really do. You really do. And this really struck me in the Brewer's series, honestly, because the Brewers came into this series leading baseball and defensive run safe. I think they still do lead to baseball and defensive run saves. But in this series, it felt like the Diamondbacks outplayed the Brewers on defense. And that's kind of the sense that I've gotten in almost every series, probably almost every game the Diamondbacks have played this year.

It just feels like the other team is going to make more mistakes. defensively than the Diamondbacks do. And at the big league level, there's not that many mistakes, right? It's not like other teams are making seven errors or anything like that. But we saw the Brewers make, I think it was three errors in the game yesterday. And the debacks just don't have games like that. They just haven't had games like that where they're making all sorts of mistakes. You know, you can poke it at little things here and there.

You know, maybe some of their outfielder don't have as good of arms as you'd find in other in other outfields around the game. But they're doing all those little things, right? They're one of the best based running teams in the game, and they're one of the best defensive teams in the game. And that allows you to get away with a lot of things, right? If you're not hitting as many homers as other teams, if you don't have quite as much star power at the top of your rotation as other teams, that allows you to work around some of those things. And it's played an enormous role in what they've been able to do so far. Joey Weimer alone currently leads baseball with six defensive runs saved already this season, which is a lot for 95 innings played.

That's insane. Who do you think leads the diamondbacks, Jesse? In defensive run saved? In defensive run saved, who do you think leads the diamond? Oh, this is fast. I feel like this is always the other way around. Like, I'm always quizzing you on random stats and seeing if you can guess what's in my head. Yep.

Who leads the diamondbacks in defensive run saves? I mean, I guess I would start at the premium position, so I would maybe say Alec Thomas. No, sir. Not Alec Thomas? No, sir. Okay. I'll try a shortstop. Although they've kind of Perdomo and Ahmed have kind of split time down the middle.

So that seems a little far-fetched. I'll try Nick Ahmed, though. Perdomo has two defensive runs saved, and he is second on the team. Okay. To Gabriel Moreno, who has three defensive runs saved. Wow, wow. I mean, I guess if you, I think he's thrown out four attempting base dealers at this point. I mean, that'll get you there pretty quick.

Especially Joey Weimer at third the other day, when Weimert stole second and then tried to take third. And Moreno was like, no, no, no, no, no. We're not doing that. But yeah. I see people in the chat know the answer and I don't. Yeah. I bet they cheated. They probably cheated.

Yeah, it's easy to look these things up. Like you said, though, the projection systems aren't quite on board with the Diamondbacks making the playoffs. In some cases, they have not even moved a budge quite much. Fan graphs as the debacks projected to go 72 and 77 the rest of the way for a final record. of two games below 500 at 80 and 82 and a playoff chance of 20.9%. Yeah, I think it was maybe 15% coming into the season. So, hey, you got a 5%. Baseball prospectus is still at round 15%.

It's at 14.3% playoff chance. Yeah, they also have the Diamondbacks going 71 and 78 the rest of the way. So they continue to doubt. A lot of doubting going on in these websites. And probably so. That's the way projection systems are, though. Yeah. Like they're not going to be like, oh, the debacks went eight and five against the, the Brewers,

Padres and Dodgers. They're the fourth best team in baseball. Now they're going to win 95 games. Like that's not the way these projection systems work. They take into consideration too much of the past and what this team has done in previous seasons and things like that. 13 games. I mean, the debacks could have gone 12 and one.

And they just wouldn't have changed. Yeah. You're right. You're right. It would be interesting to see what baseball prospectus has like the Tampa Bay is at now. with their kind of historic start. But, you know, I mean, I think projections are what they are.

You can say what you want about this team. Even the statistics that we're going to dive into, some of them don't really equal this team being as successful as they have been. So I really feel like it's a testament to what this team has been able to do at times with what they're given. And really, as stupid as the sounds coming from me, it just like they just want to win. Right. Like it doesn't really feel like there's a lot of guys out there trying to pad their own stats or doing anything like to make themselves into a superstar. This team feels like a team. Like they are they're grinding together. We have we have a different, you know, King Snake almost every single game. Yeah. We have different guys that are stepping up and helping this team win. It's been bullpen. It's been starters. It's been outfielders. It's been infielders. I mean, it feels like this is all something that is really is a team effort for them to be where they're at right now.

Yeah, I mean, it's way too early to think about this too, but I'm just thinking about like when the All-Star game rolls around if the D-backs are playing well at that point and deserving of having multiple guys in there. Right. Like who are those guys going to be, right? I mean, I think Zach Gallen is probably the most obvious candidate for something like that who hasn't been an All-Star yet.

But after that, I mean, you know, Lordus Gueriel, like, you know, probably not. I mean, I guess Corbyn Carroll, if he, you know, is able to get his on-based, percentage up a little bit and, you know, become the player that a lot of people think he can. This debaq's team is not built of stars, right? I mean, you could make a case that Zach Gallen is the only star level player on this team. And around him, it's just a bunch of guys who are well motivated and do a lot of little things right. And, you know, in the box score, their numbers might not look quite as good as good as some of the other good players around the league. But at the end of the day, it all adds up to a pretty good baseball team. You know who I realized

wasn't a superstar based on his reaction to his MLB, the show rating? Christian Walker. Okay, okay. And I'm saying that because... You realize he wasn't a superstar because of how he reacted to his MLB? That's right. You're going to have to explain this today. He pulled a little piece of paper off, and even though he had ranked himself higher,

it was only a few points higher and he was way too satisfied where he was at. Well, yeah. Zagall and meanwhile wanted to kick over the goddamn whiteboard. Zagall wanted to have a little kid tantrum because of the of the, of the, number they gave him. And more importantly, Zach Gallen probably has that number written down somewhere in his locker or somewhere, along with the list of writers that didn't vote for him last year. He's got a list of a lot of things and it motivates him quite a bit. But I mean, if you're Christian Walker, though, like last year was kind of the first year that you really put the whole

thing together for a full season, right? So you're just happy to be there though. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like the career trajectory that Christian Walker has followed to be at a point whereas MLO with his show rating in the mid-80s is really impressive. It just, honestly, for me, like what it showed, all jokes aside, was like how little ego someone like Christian Walker has. Yeah. Like he was just kind of thought, like he literally just, nah, cool. Like, hey, cool.

I'm ranked that in a baseball game. That's pretty awesome, right? And I mean, like, that's just something to, that's something special when it comes from a guy that, honestly, Christian Walker, I think I was talking about it with Michael McDermott, but he's just. a guy that we've been very lucky to have over there at first place at first base and he left like we just take him a bit for granted considering how good he is defensively over there and last year we really saw what he was able to do offensively in the second half you also

notice and i don't want to like put paven smith's defense down because i think paven smith is fine at first base but you notice you notice when pay when payven smith starts at first base and christian walker isn't there you know every every time one of the debacks infielders delivers a throw in the dirt you you kind of like, heart skips beat maybe a little more than it would if Christian Walker's over there. Yeah. He's just so smooth and so good at everything he does. Speaking of Christian Walker, I think he's going to have a very big series in Miami.

Okay. I don't know why I feel that. I just feel like we're going to see Christian Walker. And kind of a slow start for Christian Walker this year. And the Marlins team is not very good. They do have one guy that's very good, though, and that's Sandy Alcantra. Let's take a look at the probable graphics for this upcoming series with Miami. Again, Rogers is much better, I think, than that.

0 and 2 record with that 6ERA kind of labels a mask there. But that first game, I think, especially with Bum Gardner on the mound, is I'm a little hesitant to give the Diamondbacks the win there. I would love to see Mad Bum prove me wrong. I would love to see Mad Bum go out against a team that's struggling the way Miami is and just have a good outing. You know, I'm not looking for anything crazy. I'm not expecting him to have 11 strikeouts and, you know, seven innings pitch like Zach Gowan did in his last outing. But to see Bum Gardner come out and have a solid, you know, quality start would just put me over the moon at this point. Yeah.

I mean, Trevor Rogers is two years ago. He looked like a future Cy Young winner. I mean, he had a 264 ERA back in 2021 with the Marlins. But last year, he had a 5.47 ERA in 23 starts. Still has pretty good stuff. I still think, you know, I'm sure the Marlins are still excited about his future. But this year he's 0 and 2 with an ERA of 6. you know, he's covered nine innings in those two starts.

He's not really going deep in the game. So it's a pretty decent matchup at the very least. I think the debacks have a shot to win that game. You've got Ryan Nelson against Garrett on Saturday, which I think is also a fairly even matchup, the game that feels winnable. And then, of course, Zach Gallen and Sandy Alcounter, which is going to be a lot of fun.

Sunday is an epic summer blockbuster. It's not even a marquee matchup. That's a big-time pitching matchup right there between former Sye Young winner, Sandy Alcantra, and Zach Gallin, who has all of those people that voted for Sandy Alcantra on a list. Yeah, Michael McDermin in the comments, man, that's interesting.

He says, yeah, I saw an article at the Marlins without Arias have a 70 WRC plus, weighted runs, created plus, which is... Not good. Which is very not good. Yeah, their offense is just... Jazz Chisholm was 04 with four strikeouts in the game yesterday. Take him off the show.

I want him off the show. I want him off the show. I don't want to look at his face. anymore when I put that game up. Yeah, their offense is just, I mean, they're just not hitting the ball to start the year and you look up and down in that lineup. You don't necessarily see a whole lot of guys

that you're all that afraid of at this point. Very true. Very true. And honestly, you know, Zach Gallen has a chip on his shoulder a little bit about that whole situation. And I wouldn't be surprised if his team kind of backs him up there. I'll be fascinated to see if Zach Gallin's

V-low, maybe ticks up a little bit on Sunday. He's been a 93-94. That I remember in some of the, some of the A.Bs against Jax Chisholm last year. Oh, yeah. Gallon was like 96, 97 in some of those in some of those ABs. So if we get to see Chisholm Gowan on Sunday, which I think we will, it should be pretty fun. Well, you can throw some money on Christian Walker having a big game, maybe on some home runs. I saw somebody made like an incredible amount of money yesterday off of betting on the Mets game.

It was like picking the player, like three players to hit on. a home run and a money line bet won you like $56,000. Like I know how unlikely that is, right? But I feel like it's more likely than playing the lottery, right? Like because we know stuff about baseball. We know who are good home run hitters. You know who you might want to. I mean, Sean to pause, as much as I didn't like it,

he threw somebody on some Brewers players to hit some home runs in that game that Corbyn Burns started and he hit. So make sure that you're placing your bets over at BetMGM, win yourself some money. Maybe you can win yourself $56,000 on a single baseball game. You can get lots of advice, though, because soon we're going to have our curated in-app bets from your friends here at PHNX. We also will be out at the BetMGM Sportsbook, beautiful amenities, beautiful, wonderful location over there by State Farm Stadium. Great food, great drinks. We're also going to have our monthly cornhole leagues over at BetMGM Sportsbook at State Farm Stadium.

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fast start so far. I don't really know why it's happening. I don't know how it's happening, but I don't care about those things. He cares about those things. So he's going to break down for you how the Diamondbacks got to this point. So, yeah, we're just going to run through a bunch of just random stats that I pulled

basically from the Debacks 8 and 5 star. This one I didn't have on the rundown, but I just found it. I'm actually going to start with it. So leading baseball in outs above average, which is like stat-cast defensive metric, there is a Diamondbacks player who is tied for the league lead in that metric with Joey Weamer, who we already talked about, who is doing very well for himself in defensive run. It is Josh Rojas. Josh Rojas.

Regular Josh Rojas or open shirt Josh Rojas? Yeah, probably open shirt. He caused a lot of chaos. Yeah, which is incredible. The I test, I've been very impressed with Josh Rojas' defense at third base. We know that he lost playing time at the end of last season because of his third base defense. The debacks didn't like some of his mechanics and asked him to switch some things up. They took him out of the lineup for a few days.

In fact, Tori Lavello told us just the other day when he was talking about Roebos, and Marte's defense from last year. He sounded like he kind of gave Rojas an ultimatum a bit. He basically said like, we're not going to play you unless you figure this half. Basically. And we know that Tori gave every player, kind of like an off-season assignment.

They actually signed their names to kind of like a plan that they had for them to get on track. And Lavello commented about how impressed he was about both, both Rojas and Marte and how they came along. And they were both working. on completely different things. Marte was working more on just his flexibility and being healthy because they knew what a special athlete he was. But Rojas, not to say he's not a special athlete, they had some defensive concerns that Rojas worked on and improved on significantly. Yeah, Kattel is another big one. I don't have the numbers for him in front of me, but at least

the eye test, he has been really good for the feedback. Some of the plays that he's been able to make up the middle were things that he was not even close to less. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't think, I don't think Ketel is necessarily going to win a gold glove. I don't know if Rojas is going to continue putting up B's kind of numbers throughout the whole season. But those were two big things coming into this year for this D-BACs team is what's Ketel going to look like at second base? Do we have to make him a DH as he before he turns 30 years old, right? I mean, that would not have been a good thing for this team. And it looks like Ketel has really come back in better shape and looks a lot better out there.

We talked about outs above average and we talked about defensive runs. save. Dbacks are tied for fourth in the league with eight defensive runs. And they're tied for first with six outs above average. And Rojas is a big, big reason for that. Yeah, I guess he has half of those six. He has three by himself, which is pretty crazy. So as we talked about before, the debacks continued to be an outstanding defensive team. And that has been a huge part of the success that they've had this season. Leading the Diamondbacks in Wins Above Replacement, it's interesting. Actually, Michael's talking about Cattell having minus two outs above average and zero defensive run safe, which is not totally shocking.

I'm not going to come out and say that Catelle is, you know, going to win a gold glove or anything. But he's looked better at least. He's looked much better. I mean, I don't think you can argue with that one bit. You might not be getting to everything that, you know, extremely talented short or second baseman are getting to, right? But we've still just seen Catell make much better defensive plays

than we saw him doing last year. And that's huge for this team because that was considering they weren't really going to sit Catell very much. Like, that was, that was a big hole for them. Leading the D-backs and wins above replacement in 2023, I would ask you, Derek, but I'm sure you've already seen this on the rundown. So I'm not going to set you up to make it look like you know it. That I know.

That's smart. Haraldo Ferdomo leads the Diamond Vax and wins above replacement 13 games into the season, just as we all expected. That's exactly. I knew it. I knew it. He's our wrist king, so of course that he is that. But, no, I mean, Prudomo, I think,

there's a lot of benefits to Nick Ahmed being back. And I think part of it is that Perdomo doesn't have to take on that weight of being their everyday shortstop. He can really play in those splits that benefit him and that allow him to kind of flourish. Yeah, I kind of wonder, too, if maybe he's been able to just focus on his swing from the left side a little bit, just because he's basically been in there every time against righties and Ahmed's been in there every time against lefties. So I don't know that as a fact, but I wonder if Perdomo has been able to just kind of nail down a swing from the left side more than anything else. I'm not going to lie, the underlying stats on Perdomo. It's still a lot of blue on the baseball salon page.

He's not killing the baseball, I wouldn't say. Dog and him is at 99, though, and that's all we needed to be. Yeah, his weighted on base average is 519 and his expected weighted on base average based on, you know, his batted ball date and whatnot is three. 11. So there's a very big difference between what Perdomo has actually done and what he's expected to do. Like, that's quite the difference lower. I don't know if I've seen that. That's a pretty big difference. Yeah, I mean, early in the season, you'll see some big differences, but that's a big difference. He has walked 17% of the time, which is super high, continues to have great plate discipline, continues to not chase pitches out of the zone. So those things continue to be huge pluses for Perdomo. Defensively, he's looked great as well at shortstop. It seems like since the beginning middle part of, of last year when he was kind of shaky early on in the season. He's really started to flourish there defensively.

Speaking of short stops, Nick Ahmed has been faster than ever. Nick Ahmed, yeah, this one I don't know how to explain. Nick Ahmed is 33 years old, I believe. Hey, I've told you, we can get better with age. I tell you that all the time when you say this kind of stuff. He is 33 years old and his sprint speed is faster than it's been since 2016. So Nick Ahmed has been faster on the base paths. Yeah, I guess maybe the D-backs have embraced the run game so much that, you know, Nick is like, all right, I got to, I got to, you know, keep up with these young whippers snappers around here.

Something that I could honestly say is like, I've gotten into such a routine of like working out. I run almost every single day. I work out quite often. I, if you have the best sprint speed of your life since 2016? I might. I was not in very good shape. I was not a very good athlete. I wasn't very fast.

I was quite overweight. Like I'm not like my, my 20s are not something I should compare myself to at 40s. It's not a good litmus test. It's not a good example. But what I'm saying is, is that I can do this seven days, 14 days in a row.

I can be fine. And one night of sleeping wrong and my neck hurting will completely, completely shut down my, my routine will completely shut down me exercising right these guys nick could tell they've gone through major injuries you know and it's like even if it's not necessarily an injury like nicks was like a shoulder and stuff that impacts you you never know how much uh how much it's impacting you overall i mean cadels was constantly like a hamstring and obviously that's going to impact how explosive

he is defensively his ability to get down the line his ability to get the ball there's a lot there even if he's right, but it's still not 100%. He's just not going to have that same ability to be as good of an athlete as he has been. Gabriel wants to see Derek versus Dre Jameson. So I'm also on board with that. In what aspect? Like a physical fight? Because I would lose that obviously.

I'm assuming a race is what he's. In a race, I would also lose that. Drey Jameson B. Corbyn Carroll. What are we doing here? Like, that is not a race. Gabriel just wants to see how big of a race. margin, Dre would be able to come up with in like a 40-yard dash or something. I would also be entertained.

Trey Jameson is an anomaly to me. He doesn't make any sense because the man, like, he's in such great shape, right? But he's such a like compact small package that I feel like when you see him on TV versus in real life that he just looks like he is three and a half feet taller on TV than he is when you meet him. But it's probably 510 in real life, would you say? I'm not going to say that. He's listed at six feet, I believe. I am. It's definitely not six feet.

Nobody is doing the measuring in that clubhouse, apparently. They're just taking people's word for their height. But Drey Jameson, it doesn't matter how big or small he is. He's been incredible on the mound for this team. Yeah. Whether it's in the bullpen role, which he was kind of relegated to unfairly, in my opinion, or his last start or his first start, I guess you could say. of 2023, but one thing Jesse noticed was how good his slider has been.

Yeah, Drey Jamison's slider has been just absurd to start the season. His whiff rate on the slider is a cool 73.1% My goodness. Which basically means it's not that like 73% of his slider is in a swing and a miss. It's 73% of swings at his slide on his slider. End up in a miss. Yeah, which is still crazy. I mean, three out of every four times that you try to swing at Dre Jameson Slider.

You're not going to touch it. You're not going to touch it. You're not fouling it off. You're not doing anything with it. Right. And something I hadn't realized since I looked a little bit closer into this earlier today,

his movement on his slider is actually quite different from what it was last year. The velocity is almost identical. 84.7 miles an hour last year, on average, 84.8 miles an hour this year. But his movement on this pitch, Derek, has gone up drastically,

as Derek just gets up for some reason. Go ahead. Okay. There's comments. I'm getting the hat down. I'm getting a hat out of the way. Okay. Okay.

All right. I didn't mean to distract you. He needs to wear his hat. All right. So last year, vertical movement on Dre Jameson Slider was 35.9 inches on average. This year it's up to 39 inches. So more than three, a more than three inch increase in vertical drop for Dre Jemison's slider. The bigger increase, though, is horizontally how much it's moving side to side.

6.8 inches on average last year, which, was a little bit above average for for sliders of of similar velocity this year that's up to 11.1 inches my god of horizontal sweep which is about six inches above average what what do both of those things that we talk about pitch shape a lot right and i don't know if everybody understands pitch shape but what do those things do to his pitch shape that they have that much more of a drop and that much more of them yeah a lot of times you see pitchers kind of like try to favor one or the other so like from one season to the next, maybe they pull back on the drop a little bit in there and they're going for more of a sweeper, right? So they add some horizontal, take away some vertical or or vice versa.

It's pretty rare to see a pitcher with any particular pitch add significantly to both their vertical and their horizontal movement at the same time. So yeah, I'm going to have to talk with Dre about this because I didn't notice that until today. His slider was good last year too. It's been his best pitch, I think, throughout his professional career. But this year it's on a different level. And I don't think he's going to maintain a 73% whiff rate for the whole season, but he could maintain something pretty ridiculous because this pitch is moving like crazy. Clutch Canuck is trying to get in our ad reads.

Yes, speaking of an 11-inch move to the right, Roman. No, I'm going to put this on Jesse because that's what people have requested. Is that Jesse wearing for that? I will put my hat back on until my hair is purple. And I will tell you guys, of course, that the Diamondbacks have been doing. things well as a team. Pitching, maybe not so much, hitting, kind of, right? Like, team rank in foir? I like four. In four, yes. What do you, what do we got? Yeah, so on the offensive side, the debacks is a team ranked 10th in wins above replacement. So above average there.

On the pitching side of things, not so great. Not great. The devax actually have negative 0.1 wins above replacement as a pitching staff this season, according to fan graphs. And the reason for that is primarily the debacks have walked a lot of guys and they've given up kind of a lot of home runs. Yeah. And both of those things I think will improve over time. I don't know if anyone can take me seriously wearing this. No, I don't think so. Probably not, but that's okay. So yeah, I think those things will improve over time, but fan graphs is wins above replacement calculation is based on FIP, not based on ERA or like the actual number of runs you've allowed. Right. And FIP very highly values walks and home runs. Those things factor in very significantly. So,

No huge surprise there, but it is something to watch moving forward. D-backs, at least according to FIPP and some other pitching metrics, their pitching side of things is due to regress a little bit, unless they're able to improve those home run and walk numbers. Now, we know they've been giving up some home runs. We know they haven't been hitting very many home runs, but they've been stealing a lot of bases. And honestly, I don't know if I've ever had as much fun as I'm having right now

watching a team steal bases. stealing bases kind of always felt like some sort of 50-50, like luck of the draw thing, maybe the ball would get down there fast enough to get up. Maybe it won't. 50-50. I sure hope it's not 50-50. No, but you know what I mean?

Like, I'm just, I mean, it never felt. If you're only successful 50% of the time when you steal a base, you should never try to steal a base. I'm not talking about the actual success rates. I'm talking about what it felt like when you were watching like a stolen base attempt to go down. Okay. And the catcher was throwing out there, right?

Now it feels honestly like when we see a Diamondbacks player get a jump that that that shit's going to happen. And I mean honestly, again, when you talk about putting fire in my blood, the Diamondbacks getting steals, that puts fire in my blood. Let's get trained here. That puts fire in my blood. It puts fire in his blood too. Diamondbacks currently tied for second in the league in stolen bases with 17. Yeah, the Cleveland Guardians. They passed him up over the last few days.

Another young exciting team, though. Another young exciting team. Speaking of young exciting teams, the debacks are also tied with the Baltimore Orioles with those 17 stolen bases. But yeah, the debacks have still only been caught once this year. They're 17 for 18. So that is obviously outstanding. Jake McCarthy was the one guy who was caught on the base pads that happened in San Diego.

And he stole a base later in that same game. That was the game that Josh Rojas stole home and all sorts of other crazy things. So even when the debacks do get caught, it feels like they're, you know, they're still impacting the game on the bases in other ways. So, yeah, and on the other side of things, what's honestly even crazier than the debacks being 17 for 18 is that opposing teams are two for six against the diamondbacks attempting to steal bases. Gabby don't. Gabby don't play in large part because of Gabby Moreno, who is caught four out of the five.

I think opposing teams are one for one against Jose Herrera. They haven't run against him much. and they are one for five running against Gabby Moreno. And Nicholas says it right there with the higher success rate this year. It's extra exciting when Gabby comes them down. What's funny is I don't remember Gabriel Moreno's arm being something that was talked about as far as... It was one of the things. It was it in there, but it wasn't...

It wasn't like a feature. It wasn't like... Yeah. We talked about his bat a lot, but it didn't seem like a lot of what he did behind the plate got very much attention. Yeah, I think you definitely traded for Gabby Moreno because of the hitter that you believe. believe he can be. And also knowing that he is a sure thing to stay at catcher. There were no questions about like, oh, you might have to move this guy to first base. The man, he can hit. He might be a liability. Yeah, he wasn't, he wasn't that kind of a guy. But, but yeah, I mean, for him with his

arm, it's a little bit of everything. His, his, just the sheer velocity that he's, that he has on these throws is, is, is well above average. His pop time is well below average. So he's getting it out faster. His transfer time of getting the ball, you know, from his mitt out of his hand is also better than average. So I don't know if it's like, oh, he's, you know, he's throwing 95 mona or fastball is a second base. It's not that. It's just he's better than average at everything. Yeah. When it comes to throwing guys out and we've seen that be pretty incredible in real life posing teams one for five trying to steal against him. Ryan H says he's got some tools. He doesn't have all the tools. That guy left. But he's got some.

tools. He's missing the band saw. He doesn't have the drill press. But he'll help you fix the legs on your table if they break. There's some other things he can do, but he's got some tools for sure. You guys have some tools too, by the way, when it comes to saving money and it comes to getting

out to baseball games. Your biggest tool should be using our friends over at game time because if you are a procrastinator and you want to save big on tickets, game time is the app for you. Not only sporting events, but concert shows, anything you want to go to. Game time is the place for last minute ticket deals. It is the

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Game time. Game time keeps those fees limited and you will see an overall lower ticket price, even if you find a similar ticket price elsewhere. Also, it was brought up in the chat. Jesse didn't get the couch yet. He'll never, he's not going to decide on it because, again, there's too many. There's too many options. There's too many. He has to go see it in person.

But luckily, more furniture has showrooms all across the valley. Jesse can go check out the couches and see which one he likes. He's going to put a lot of research into it. He's got to compile statistics on the couch's comfortability, size of cushions, right? There is a size of cushions is big for him. There is a wing of stat cast that's committed to bedroom furniture. He's looking, of course, he's looking for one with a very high dog in him rating as well.

But you don't have to do all of that research that this guy does because more furniture makes it easy for you. They have the best furniture in the valley. And they have their white glove delivery service, which brings it in and allows you to not have to lift a finger when setting it up. Save big on the best furniture in the valley when you head to more furniture.com. Moustacheau Mike says, Jesse, would you go to a W.W.E event with Derek if he beat you a ping pong? I mean, sure, but he would never beat me a ping pong. So that doesn't matter. We're going to make that happen.

We're going to make that happen for sure. A couple of other notes that baseball might be getting bigger. We've talked a bit about the interest in expanding baseball and expansion teams. We talked about that the group I believe in, was it in Charlotte, I believe, with Dave Stewart and Tony Larusa attached. That was Nashville. Was it Nashville? I'm not sure. But there are cities to be rumored to be interested, including Charlotte, Portland, San Antonio, and even Mexican.

and even Mexico City per front office sports. That would be wild. That would be wild. But the newest addition or the newest kind of group that's kind of popped up is a group led by former owner of the Utah Jazz. And they are looking to bring an MLB team to Salt Lake City. Yeah. What are your thoughts? Well, I feel like people hate fans of the Utah Jazz.

And I say that as someone who has never attended an NBA game involving the Utah Jazz. But it's abundantly clear. It's kind of a thing, right? I don't even think of them. I don't think like when I see a Utah jazz fan, my first question is do you root? Which team do you refer for? The nuggets? I don't know.

What do you guys all kind of are the same to be basically? There, I don't know. I've heard some stories of how brutal Utah jazz fans can be. The players, the players in particular have problems with jazz fans. I think, you know, a lot of, from a fan base perspective, there's not a lot of back and forth with jazz fans, but the players don't enjoy playing at in Salt Lake City. What is the idea there about it? Do you just?

They just say, I think they just say nasty things. Some undertones. Okay. Behind the things that are said to a lot of NBA players. Racism. Racism. I get it. Got it.

Racism. You could have just said racism and I would have totally understood what you met. That's understandable. That's fine. But baseball. That's understandable. That's fine. That's what it is.

No, I'm sure there are some fabulous people who live in Salt Lake City. You would love to have a baseball team. It's like anything, right? Every fan base has some great fans. It's just the vocal ones that, and then like it can spread, right? Because if you kind of have a bad trend in your city where maybe a high profile fan gets a lot of attention, but they're kind of nasty like that, it can make other people. Look, my mood is definitely affected by the mood of others.

And I hate that about me. I hate the fact that I can't just plug along being happy when someone by me is sad or angry, that I have to like mutate and take on their feelings of anger or sadness. just because I'm riding in the car with them to an event or something. But I do think baseball getting bigger is a good thing. I do think that I feel like this is gaining some momentum because we have seen, especially that Portland group definitely feels like they're putting a lot of things together to try to bring a team there.

Obviously, no matter what happens, much like the Diamondbacks and the Rays are sisters, this one, this has to happen with some other teams. So if there is a team that is awarded to Salt Lake City, we would have to see one of these other teams also pop up to even things out. Yeah, it'll be really interesting to watch. I mean, I think it's pretty inevitable, honestly. Rob Manfred has said very, very vocally that he wants to get to 32 teams. And I see that as being a fairly realistic thing to happen within, I don't know,

maybe a decade, two decades, something like that. I think it's something that we'll see in the not too distant future. The roadblock for right now is, of course, the Oakland days and the Tampa Bay race. Correct. Two teams that Major League Baseball, yeah, they want to figure out what are we doing with those teams? They need to figure that out before they're willing to entertain the idea of adding additional teams into the league. Mexico City is one that I've kind of had in the back of my head, honestly in the past, wondering if that would ever be an option. We'll have to look more into this and maybe see how much momentum there is for that.

I feel like there could be a couple of reasons why that doesn't happen. I know we've seen it. Probably more than a couple. More than a couple, right? I know that we've seen some issues with, like, traveling when it comes to, like, Canada and things like that, especially during the pandemic when, you know, you had to be fully vaccinated. Yeah. I mean, that hopefully, hopefully won't be an issue moving forward. That's fine.

That's fine. But there's always going to be hurdles with having a team located in a different country like that, right? But, I mean, just, just like seeing how people came out to support Team Mexico, right, during the WBC, like, you know that if you put a baseball team. Mexico City. Oh, it's going to be electric. Their fan base would be, would be insane. It's just going to produce one clip after the next, after the next, as far as like weird, fun, exciting things happening.

Yeah. It just, it wouldn't even be the same game. I don't feel like in Mexico because they just, they have so much more fun with baseball, I think, than they do in Major League Baseball. That doesn't go just for Major League Baseball. That goes, like, everybody has more fun with baseball than Major League Baseball. Everybody. I mean, every single college, the bananas, it doesn't matter who it is.

If there is a league outside of Major League Baseball, they're having more fun with baseball than MLB is, that's for sure. Mexico City is also like, like it's pretty far, right? I mean, I think I'm looking at it. Mexico City is like a three-hour flight from Phoenix. And Phoenix would be closer than basically anywhere else in the country. And it's a gigantic city, too. When you go to Mexico City, it's gigantic.

I'm trying to imagine like with the new schedule, every team plays every team, right? So every year, you would have to have the Boston Red Sox, you know, traveling to Mexico City or or vice versa. Like, I don't know if that's something major league baseball would want to take on. But it's still interesting. I mean, I feel like it would be really cool to involve Mexico in, you know, one of the major sports in the states at some point. But the logistics of getting there are definitely a little bit difficult. Apparently, Zach Gallen, according to Gabriel, posted a.

photo of himself at the pool in Miami? In Miami with socks and shoes on. Interesting. We need to have a talk, Zach. Interesting. We need to have a talk. But Zach isn't the only person within the Diamondbacks organization I want to talk to. And I'm just going to say this right now.

Let me preface this next section by saying, this hurts me so much. What? What are you talking about? The Arizona Diamondbacks, Jesse, are one of four teams in Major League Baseball. that changed their beer selling policy. I believe someone addressed it in the chat a little while ago. I think it was Ryan. He said we do get beer sales in the eighth now.

They are one of four. Rangers, brewers, because of course the brewers changed. Yeah, of course the Brewers were going to be in there. Of course they did. And the Minnesota Twins are one of our four teams that have extended their beer sales

to go through the eighth inning because baseball games, shorter. I mean, they are shorter. That's fine. They're not wrong. That's fine. That's fine. And I being a person that have lived by society's rules for far too long, I deep down inside my rebellious nature, my rebellious nature loves this. But logically,

what in the fuck are we doing? Are you serious? So baseball games are shorter. So you're going to let people drink later into the game. What? I mean, you guys are going to hate me, but shouldn't sales stop now in the sixth inning instead of the eighth?

Shouldn't we go back a little bit? If you buy a beer in between the seventh and the eighth inning and baseball games go the way they've been going lately, you are going to have half of a goddamn beer in your hand when that game is over. I thought the point of us stopping selling beer in the seventh was so people could sober up and drive home safely. Matt Strom from the Philadelphia Phillies

has a similar problem with this than I do. And I hate that I have to say this, because I'm sitting here drinking a beer right now. I feel like a hypocrite. I feel like the worst hypocrite, right? But it's like Elizabeth said, danger in the name of money. So American, so American. I mean, that's what it is.

Kyle said the Rockies also extended their beer sales. Well, they play at Coorsfield. So of course they did. And again, I'm not like super mad about this at all. Like, again, it's still. Well, here, it's still up to the individual, right? It's still up to you. Like, basically it's on you.

to do take responsibility for yourself as it always really should have been in the first place, but we cannot allow people sometimes unfortunately to leave that responsibility up to themselves. As we've seen here in Arizona quite a bit, that doesn't work out. And unfortunately, people's lives are put at risk on this kind of thing. I'm not trying to be like a sad sack here, but I hate when stuff is illogical to me. And like when you try to tell me that the reason why you're doing this is because of beer sales, I like that's that that seems that seems very dangerous and like okay beer sales have gone down great that should have probably been something you guys factored into shortening the time of baseball games

this shouldn't be a surprise to you they knew exactly how much shorter minor league games were going to be and they knew before this season that they were going to hopefully shave about 25 minutes off of the average time of games which that's exactly what they've done yeah so how is this a surprise and why is this the solution that makes sense yeah i mean i mean Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me either. I mean, like you said before, the point of not selling alcohol past the seventh inning is because you want to make sure people are safe to drive home and whatnot. It's not to let the concessions people go home earlier or anything like that. It's just simply for safety.

And again, I drink. I drink on the show almost every single episode that we do. I am not against drinking. I'm against drinking irresponsibly, right? And that's something that we should all focus on being as responsible as we can when we do drink, right? I have left here quite a few times where my car stayed in the garage outside because I'm downtown Phoenix and I went and met with my friends, had a couple more drinks and took a lift or an Uber home, right? And I'm not saying that that's out of the realm of possibility now with baseball games being, you know, what they are, right? Like bars close it to things that sell alcohol, serve it all night long.

It's not like, I guess it's not major league baseball or any sports job to make sure people are be responsible. But it kind of is, right? It's kind of like when they blame a bar for letting a guy that's been served, you know, entirely too much, walk out the door and jump in his car. And I honestly, I just, I find this to be really irresponsible, even though I love beer. I love beer, Jesse. And I, like, you're putting me in a, in a position to have to speak out against beer. I hate this. That's, that's, I don't like this.

You did this to me. Don't do this to me. It is interesting to me also that, I mean, something we talked about in the off season is how will shorten game times impact concession sales, which was a concern that a lot of people raise. And there was an article from Baseball America that we talked about where they looked into this. And they basically found that in the miners, concession sales were not actually impacted at all by the fact that games were being shorter. What they found was basically just that people were actually staying through the entire game

rather than leaving early, you know, staying there for that same amount of time, actually allowed them to be there for the entire duration of the game rather than leaving in the seventh inning or something like that. So they were still there anyway for the full duration of when the concessions were available. Now they just were able to actually see a full baseball game while they were there. I don't know if maybe teams have some data that is showing them that concession sales actually are down and they're a little worried about that in the early going. I know that the debacks in particular with, you know, with their TV deal and whatnot. I'm sure they're trying to bring in as much revenue as they possibly can. But yeah, I mean, this isn't an issue we expected to have.

and it's interesting to see teams making this adjustment already. If beer sales are a problem or profits are down, why not raise the price of beer? I mean, I don't think people would love that either. I don't like it. I can't believe I just said it. There's lots of things I don't like. But I mean, also, I know, that was, that was terrible. Did you just openly recommend that they increase the prices of beer?

It's like 1550 a beer. Phoenix Rising has dollar beer night, right? And so what I will say is, is that irresponsible to, right? Like I love Dollar Beer Night. I think Clutch Canuck brought up in the chat. Now they're bringing back 10 cent beer night, which I know they're not because that only happens in Tupelo. But no, they not, I don't know. I mean, I don't know where the line is crossed because like I said, is Dollar Beer Night also just as unnecessary or irresponsible potentially.

I mean, yeah, I feel like I drink way more at Dollar Beer Nights at a Phoenix Rising game than I ever do for $15 at an Arizona Diva Bags game. so or concert or show or anything. Typically, if I go to a son's game, especially a son's game, which is shorter than, you know, baseball or used to be. I don't know if it is anymore. Yeah, pretty similar now. I get one beer.

That's it. One gigantic beer that cost me like 20 bucks. And then because of that, that's it. I mean, most of the times I'm not, I'm not even going to finish it before I could go get another one before they stopped selling beer. So I just, again, I feel like I've strayed so far from God now, Jesse. I feel like, you're asking them to raise prices.

You're doing all sorts of stuff. what's happening. I don't know what's happening. Joseph Davis says, what is worse, $1 $1, $1 hot dog night. I don't know. I don't know. You're going to go home and have a, you're going to have a bad time. You're going to really damage people's lives with either one. I think that's pretty abundantly clear at this point. Am I allowed to take this hat off? No, you're not. No. Craig just walked in and made fun at me. Yeah, no, that's good. That makes it even one of the other serious writers at this company is like, what is Jesse doing? He's going to shame you and chat later. It's going to be great.

I'm going to screenshot it and set it to the baseball. Yeah, please do. Please do. We'll send it to Steve, Nick, and Zach. There we go. They'll enjoy that. But of course, tomorrow, tomorrow is Friday. Tomorrow is Budzapalooza.

We will be hanging out with our friends from OG's brands right across the street, having a blast out there. Of course, OG's brands has the best edibles that you can find here in the valley. They're a local valley company. And let's just be honest, they're a great group of dudes. I love the guys over at OG's. And it's an honor to work with a. group of people that that really just love their product and want to bring a quality product

to the valley and to everybody as much as possible. They are definitely all about flavoring life. And they have a couple of their specific strain or specific gummies that are fantastic, including their Aqua Berry Sleep Edition gummy that gives you the best night's sleep that you ever had. It's a CBN to THC 2 to 1 ratio and it flavors your dreams. But like I said, we are going to be right across the street and we are going to be having a good time with our new collab shirt with OG's brands. It's live now. And if you want to get your hands on this dope collab shirt, make sure to get your tickets to Budzapalooza. Our entire PHNX crew will be hanging out there Friday, April 14th in the downtown Phoenix area with our friends from OGs. They'll be doing a

special edition of the OGs pHNX variety show live. That will be me. I will be there. I will be one of the hosts of that show. And we will be doing that live from Budzapalooza. And that is where you can buy your OG's collab shirt to get info on Budzapalooza. Check out www. www. www. com. And now I want to apologize to our friends of Four Peaks for my rant about beer because I

was not in any way, meaning your delicious beers. But make sure to check out our friends at Four Peaks. You can get them at Chase Field and you get them everywhere you get your beer here in the valley. They should sell Four Peaks through the ninth inning, but all the other beers stop in the seventh. That's the solution. We found the solution right there.

but be sure to follow Four Peaks on social at Four Peaks Brew to get all the latest information on Arizona's Premier Craft Brewery. And the best place to take in the NFL draft on April 27th is at Four Peaks A Street Pub with us from PHNX. Bo will be there, Johnny will be there, but they'll be doing a live PHNX Cardinals show. Make sure to join them for that and then hang out with all of us. You can register for free in the link in our show notes

to take advantage of beer specials. Must be 21 years or older to enjoy. And again, once again, most important part, enjoy responsibly. $3, $3 red beer lager pints, $5 red beer logger pitchers. I don't even know why you buy the pints. For $2 more, you're getting a pitcher. Just drink right out of the pitcher like we do at PWG.

Also, we'll have our usual PHNX specials of $3 kilt lifters and wow pints. So again, make sure to join us out there on the 27th for the NFL draft. And we hope to see you guys out there. In the meantime, we hope to see you guys following us on Twitter. I'm at cap underscore caveman with a K. Jesse is at Jesse and Friedman. our producer and the one that makes this show go is the one and only Damon. He'll be at Damon Dog, the AWG.

Our shows at PHNX underscore D-Backs, but of course all roads lead to at PHNX underscore Sports on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. No show till Sunday. No show until Sunday. I'm going to watch this whole Marlin series before we have another show. That's right. That's wild. So make sure you guys tune into that.

Join us for Budzapalooza on Friday if you have got nothing to do. And again, we will be back on Sunday around, I don't know, what would you say, around like 2 o'clock, 1 o'clock? Yeah, 1.30-ish depending on when that game ends. So join us for the post-series. I feel like it could be pretty quick with Alcansur and down on the mound. Game starts at 1040. Post-game is at 1130.

Join us then for that. The pitch clock, man. The pitch-clock, maybe. It's impacting everything, including beer sales. What in the world is happening? But again, we thank you guys so much for joining us on behalf of Damon, Jesse and myself. We always appreciate your time. And remember, kids, baseball is fun.

But it's so much more fun when. you can get a beer in the eighth inning?